Coach has gone too far

With Euro 2004 just 11 weeks away, the coach has betrayed the trust that the FA's £3m a year tried to buy

Reflecting once on what it meant to manage Arsenal Football Club, Arsène Wenger spoke of an elderly lady he had met at Highbury soon after his arrival. She held on to his sleeve as she told him how she had supported the Gunners since she was a young girl and how the club was a central part of her life. The encounter made a deep impression on Wenger, for it pinpointed the enormity of his new responsibility. This burden of trust is one that England’s manager, Sven-Göran Eriksson, has never understood.

Eriksson is portrayed as an intelligent man, and he certainly has an air of sophistication. But how could he not understand why he was being paid an extraordinary amount of money to manage England’s football team? Did he not compare his salary to that of his counterparts in France, Spain, Holland and Italy and wonder at the reasons for